But with ground fighting looming in and around Baghdad, concerns over how far to go in depicting this new phase of fierce fighting are a hot topic of conversation in network newsrooms.

It's this war's unprecedented immediacy that is presenting the biggest challenge.

"When did we ever have live reporters rolling down in the desert of Iraq reporting on war?" asked Mark Effron, vice president of live news programming for MSNBC. "There is no playbook for any of this stuff."

Indeed, the networks all say they have no written policies limiting the extent of war-related carnage they're willing to put on the air.

But they also say they have no desire to air such material anyway out of sensitivity to viewers and the families of servicemen and women.

The problem is: When a battle is raging, how do you keep images of death from going out over the air?

"Is there a danger [of some violent images making it onto the air]? Yes," Effron admitted. "Have we ever faced anything like this before? No. Are we going to use our best judgement? Absolutely."

The networks have been and will continue to be dependent on the judgement of their news crews in the field and their producers in the control rooms. The only other safeguard they have in place to prevent the broadcasting of bloody images of real-life war is a five- or seven-second delay mechanism.

That might not sound like much time, but news producers insist it's enough.

"Even in situations that are not war-related, you can cover stories where there could be images that are very violent or very gory," said a spokeswoman for NBC. "And you always have to trust the people in the control room to handle that appropriately," she said.

As for having to make snap judgements in five or seven seconds, news execs say that situation has rarely arisen so far in the Iraqi war, even if there is a greater potential for such decision-making as the battle for Baghdad takes shape.

Execs also note that, while some firefights have made it to the air, much of the so-called "live" coverage of battle action has been heard more than it's been seen on TV.

"I believe we can convey a sense of what it's like without having to show most graphic scenes," said MSNBC's Effron. "I think we all know what we are going to put on and what we're not going to put on."